


Now and Then

by bookish_cupcake



Series: Hel of The Forgotten [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Norse mythology freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6804025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookish_cupcake/pseuds/bookish_cupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through his eyes, Heimdall sees All.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now and Then

Heimdall sees all. More than what he can convey to the All-Father, for even sometimes even the king cannot know such things. Heimdall sees into all the realms, into future, and the back to the past. Of all the gods, he is the one who remembers the past cycles clearly and fully.

The child, the one destined to become the Goddess of Death, sits on his bridge. Her feet dangle above the entirety of the cosmos, and he crisply remembers one particular cycle from so, so long ago. The first cycle. The only cycle thus far that Hel did not fall from Asgard as a girl, but as a woman.

She often visited him, come to the same spot where the child now sat. She would stare in the abyss as she spoke to him. He recalls her first question, the very first words Hel had ever spoken to him. “If I were to step out, I wonder where it would take me. I suppose you know the answer.”

“You will have your answer soon enough.”

Hel, the adult one, snapped her head in his direction. “They say you rarely speak, too engrossed by the magnitude of _everything_.” She smirked, the kind she learned from her father. She walked away from the stars and up to him, her smirk still in place. “Something else catch your eye?”

Heimdall did not speak. Hel shrugged and carried on talking anyways.

Heimdall is back in the present, never really having left. He sees the child looking down into the cosmos. He is always watching over her. Unable to interfere with actions, but able to provide words.

“Focus on being a child,” he tells her. He means it. He sees her growing up in Helheim, almost alone. He has witnessed it time after time. “Play with your dolls, have a tea party, make some friends,” he continues. “There is time before the wind takes you elsewhere.”

The flow of time changes, even if it’s so slow that one only realizes it after eons have passed. Heimdall knows this. He knows that there are some things that the norns cannot weave into destiny. One thing, over all this time, does not change. Hel always sneaks away to his bridge. Always marvels at the stars. Always talks to him.  

A ghostly outline of the old Hel smiles back at him.

This is something that he would never change. 

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to A Long Wait For Tea


End file.
